Come Undone
by SevenOverThree
Summary: When you find out that the person you hate most is the one responsible for maintaining the tenuous balance of sanity in your city, What would you do to save him when his life and mind alike are threatened? DxJ fluff fic - No romance here guys.
1. Relation

**DISCLAIMER**: I am not Lord Vasquez.

**AUTHORS NOTES**: This fanfic is a sort of... pet project of mine. I've already got it planned from beginning to end, and don't feel any particular need to stop writing it. That is, with the entire plot figured out, It is entirely likely that this story will most definitely be finished.

I _know_ that this is short - when I write on paper, my stories always are. Every chapter will, unfortunately, hover around this length, but the story itself will be about 22 chapters long, if all goes to plan.

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><p><em>RELATION<em>

Though Johnny had vowed to try and get his emotions under check, he still found himself, on occasion, dragging some sorry shit of a human being down to his basement under the triple-digit heaven house, strapping them into one of his innumerable torture devices and keeping them there until the person in question could recite exactly what it was that they'd done wrong, word for word - without him having revealed such information to them in the first place.  
>Of course by that point, he'd usually have the person reduced to tears and praying to every deity that they could think of -some of which were not even the pray-to-me sort- to let them go. Which, sometimes, Johnny did, as an experiment. Not pray to gods, no, but release them. Since his entirely disappointing encounter with God, and a distinctly less-than-pleasant trip through Hell, Johnny had decided that it was highly unlikely that <em>any <em>god cared about him even in the slightest. The whole encounter with the 'other side' as it were, had been very disillusioning.

Regardless of his belief that Deities were thusly undeserving of worship at all, Johnny would sometimes listen to the prayers of his captured victims, usually out of boredom and a lack of anything better to do, from some nearby, unseen area - and some rare captives would be lucky enough to be released, though not before he promised them a just-as-painful second go round if he ever caught them acting like the goblins deeper in the city ever again. He had yet to se any of his released captives disobey him. It was very pleasing.  
>There had been one man, he recalled, -named Dixon, if memory served, which to be honest, it usually didn't- that he had released and then proceeded to meet up with again several months later. Not on purpose, of course - it had been purely accidental.<br>Johnny had, at the time, only the vaguest of memories of the man, recognizing him but not sure where from. So, he had been fairly surprised when the man had begun pleading for his life in the middle of the street, begging Johnny to let him live, telling him everything he'd done since his release from the maniacs basement. He had, as Johnny recalled, broken down to tears when Johnny grinned, finally remembering where he had seem the man before, and assuring him that he had no immediate reason to, nor any interest in, recapturing him. Johnny had continued on his way and left the man bawling on the street, in too much of a good mood to be overly bothered by the noise.

Right now though, Johnny had another man in his basement, screaming that the maniac was going to 'get it'. After a while, the man had stopped, but still stared at Johnny with such an arrogant confidence that the maniac couldn't help but rant and yell and screech at the man before him that his death would be painful, and drawn out, that he was going to assure his death took as long as was physically possible.

"You don't understand..." The man finally had said one day, after enduring a particularly long, and less lucid rant from Johnny about cheese and peanut butter. Johnny paused, gazing at the man with a suspicious look in his hazel eyes.

"And that would be what, exactly?" He started. "Why I choose to keep you alive? Because if that's the case, then then you're right - I really _don't_ understand. I _should _kill you - keeping you alive enough to be coherent is getting tedious." Johnny turned towards the table behind him; it was covered in blades of varying designs that needed to be cleaned before they rusted over. He lost too many knives that way. A knife was snatched up, and a cloth, too.

"No - that's not it." The man muttered, weak from lack of food but no less confidant, for some reason or another. "We've been tracking you for years." Johnny paused in his careful cleaning of the numerous blood-stained blades before him, turning to his captive with a wide, toothy grin upon his gaunt face.

"Oh _have_ you? Obviously not very well, then, otherwise I'd be in a padded cell right now, wouldn't I?" The captive shook his head, chuckling. For a few moments, Johnny entertained the idea of tossing the dagger he was currently cleaning at the captive before him, into his skull - the only reason he didn't was because he was trying to deaden that part of him, the part that cared enough about shits like this to react to them. So, he let the man continue, even if only begrudgingly.

"Not if we only wanted to watch you - and believe you me, it was the most difficult of tasks for the longest time. You kept vanishing like smoke on the goddamned wind." Despite the man trailing off into silence, Johnny knew he wasn't done.

"However..." The maniac started for him, too impatient to let him begin on his own.

"However, recently you stared popping up all over the place. Whatever you _used_ to do, you _don't _anymore." The man was grinning widely, his eyes flashing with all of the arrogance that Johnny hated so much. "We never tried to capture you because you were too slippery to dig into, too elusive to get any real, tangible evidence on. It was hard enough just to keep track of where you were, let alone what you did day to day." Now, the man looked rather high-and-mighty, and it was threatening Johnny's self-control. He looked as though he, despite being chained up, tortured, held captive and dying of both starvation and thirst, was somehow in a better position that Johnny.

"Why so chatty all of a sudden, hm?" Johnny asked, snatching up yet another of the dirty blades. He wondered if the man expected to have one thrown at him. The man certainly didn't act like it. Dagger still in hand, he moved, walking casually up to his captive. Perhaps this man needed some incentive so as to not talk like that to the man that controlled whether or not he remained alive. "Should I do something about it?" The man didn't respond - he only continued to grin, making Johnny narrow his eyes and wonder just what, exactly, could be done to finally sap this mans infallible confidence.  
>"How about I strap you into Edgar's Machine?" Johnny asked, not really looking for an answer. He'd either continue to grin, or agree with it. No help at all. The man was like to go along with anything Johnny suggested, and Edgar's Machine was as good as any other torture device in this expansive basement of his.<p>

Originally, the machine hadn't really had much of a name. It had been another in a long line of nameless torture devices that littered the rooms of his basement, one of the ones that inevitably wound up with it's occupant dying. Edgar had been the first one to be put into that particular device, and because Johnny had had nothing to call the thing, he'd started calling it 'Edgar's Machine', even after he'd used it to kill dozens of others.  
>Besides, he was certain that Edgar wouldn't have minded - the man was one of severe few that Johnny had ever felt the need to remember, if not the only one.<p>

"Sure." The man said, breaking the maniac out of his thoughts. "Too bad you won't get the chance." Again, Johnny narrowed his eyes, angered a fair bit by this captives ability to shrug off the seriousness of his situation and practically joke around with the man that was about to kill him.

"And why is that?" Johnny asked sharply. "Because you said so? I'm afraid that's not quite how it works down here." Johnny felt his voice turn sibilant with anger, and fought to control it as he continued to speak. This one man was ruining all of the progress Johnny had made on complete domination over his emotions! "You see, regardless of what you may think; down here I am untouchable. I have dragged thousands of shits and jock-holes just like you down here, and among those only two have escaped with their lives intact."

"Y'know, Dixon was a good man." Johnny twitched, narrowing an eye in confusion at the sudden change in topic.

"Dixon...?" Johnny muttered. "This wouldn't happen to be the very same Dixon I released a few months back...?" The man nodded.

"The same. He was one of our best, you know. Now we can hardly talk to him without him him taking off, yelling about something or other. We weren't prepared for his being captured, and hadn't the resources to try and take him back. His was a very unfortunate loss." Johnny fingered the bloody dagger still in the grip of his bony hands. He was sorely tempted to just kill this man and be done with it. It would certainly save him a lot of trouble.

"And what does that mean for me? If I could catch another one of you people, whoever you people _are_, with so few problems... You people aren't doing too well, you know." The captive only grinned again as he spoke.

"I was _supposed _to get caught. Now you've become a threat to us, we have to take you out. My friends will be here soon." Johnny laughed, dropping the dagger back down with the others, and headed upstairs. He was hungry - he could go for some skettios.

"Good luck." He muttered. "If I can kill in broad daylight with no consequences, I doubt I have _anything_ to fear from you."

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><p>I apologize for the short chapter - when I write on paper, my stories are always always ALWAYS short. Well, not 'Another Time, Another Tale' (Unposted Kingdom Hearts fic I've been working on for nigh on three years now), but that's because I don't separate chapters in that until I realize that I'm more than twenty pages in.<p>

Either way, forgive me for the shortness - but at the same time, for those of you honestly bothered by such: Get over it. I don't write for you. This is _my_ story not yours. :p


	2. Creation

**DISCLAIMER**: I am not Lord Vasquez.

**AUTHORS NOTES**: The second chapter of 'Come Undone'. Here, we see where Devi is at, and I have to warn you, Devi is, at this point in the story, more or less glorified filler.  
>While her side of the story is important, it takes a little while for it to come into play - unlike Johnny's, which bursts into action rather soon.<p>

Pay attention to Dixon - he pops up a fair bit. He isn't, at this point in development, a terribly important character, but he does play the part of connecting the two storylines intimately, if you've been paying attention.  
>So while yes, Dixon is a background character, he sort of ties everything together.<p>

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><p><em>CREATION<em>

Once Sickness faded from her mind, Devi found herself bombarded with ideas for paintings - for example, she was currently midway through illustrating her fight with the creature that had tried so desperately to siphon her creativity away to foster it's own continued growth. The painter was also rather tempted to try and attempt to fit a certain homicidal psychopath in it somewhere; especially seeing as how Sickness had alluded to having originated from the psychotic male.  
>However, as she'd quit her job at NERVE, she no longer had any sort of regulated flow of income and was more concerned with obtaining a new place to work. Not that Tenna minded supporting her. the over-active girl was more than happy to help out her best friend, but it made Devi feel guilty to know that Tenna was actively working to support both herself <em>and<em> her best friend, who more often than not would spend a good portion of her own paychecks -not that she was getting any- on supporting her painting hobby.

"So, any luck with the job hunt yet?" Tenna asked, watching her friend paint an exaggerated, demonic version of the creature that had invaded her brain a few months ago. Devi sighed, shaking her head.

"No, still nothing. It's like people here don't want to hire anybody who happens to be smarter than they are - one word longer than three syllables, and they suddenly can't figure out what I'm saying or why I'm there." She resisted stabbing her paintbrush through the canvas before her, concentrated on keeping calm enough to get the image of a demon Sickness out of her head without having any injuries result from the effort. "It's so... so aggravating!" She growled. Tenna patted her back.

"You'll find something. Not everybody can _possibly_ be _that_ stupid. Maybe this is your old boyfriend bad-luck coming back to bite you in the ass for abandoning it with that last guy you dated." Ignoring the reference to Johnny, Devi scoffed, grinning.

"Oh, you'd be surprised Tenna. Anybody in this city that's sane enough to not hear voices is almost always as dumb as a post." Tenna frowned slightly, giving her friend a disappointed, but still mildly amused, glare.

"That's not true." She said. "Why, some of my best friends are entirely sane - give or take some paranoia, or OCD." Devi set down that brush, turning to the smiley girl toting a skeleton squeak toy.

"Tenna, that's just it; if they don't hear voices, they're paranoid. If they aren't paranoid, they have obsessive compulsive disorder. If it's not OCD, it's schizophrenia. It's the unwritten law of this town - sane people are as dumb as a post, and anybody that happens to have one iota of greater-than-normal intelligence has some kind of illness or disorder." Devi walked over to her closet, grabbing a jacket and slipping it on. She wanted to go out now, this conversation had put her entirely out of a painting mood. The blame couldn't be placed on Tenna though - the girl just didn't understand when Devi was being serious, sometimes.  
>"Lock my door when you leave?" Devi asked. Tenna nodded, and Devi gave her a smile before shutting the door behind her. The least Devi could do was make her friend think that everything was fine, right?<p>

0o0o0o0o0

Devi quickly found herself headed to her favorite cyber-cafe - the place, though located in a fairly busy area, never seemed to attract too many customers, and more often than not everybody inside completely ignored each other - unless you were ordering something, that is. The customers barely gave each other a second look. Most of the time, Devi went there to sketch - nobody bothered her, so she could get lots done.

She'd barely been there, sitting at a table, for ten minutes before the strange man walked in, jittery and shaking and looking for all the world like he was about to drop dead from a heart attack induced by how nervous he appeared. He appeared to be mumbling to himself occasionally, too - not the crazy, I-hear-voices-in-my-head kind, but the super-scared whats-around-the-corner sort of mumbling.  
>Devi watched him as he walked, watched him cross the cafe and sit at the table next to her. He looked so nervous that Devi couldn't help but want to talk to him. She hoped he wasn't crazy.<p>

"Hey, you alright sir?" Thankfully, the man was not, apparently, scared enough that the mere act of speaking made him flinch.

"Hmm? O-oh, I'm fine." Devi narrowed an eye in suspicion. She didn't believe his fake smile and attempt at assurance. This man was by no means fine; he was scared. But what of, she did not know.

"Are you sure? You look kinda like I did after I found out one of my closest friends was a homicidal nutjob." At that, the man froze, then turned, giving her a strange, scared look.

"W-was he tall, skinny, black hair... K-kinda bipolar, almost?" the man hopped over to Devi's table when she nodded silently, too shocked at this completely random man's accurate description of the guy that had nearly taken her life so many months ago. "His name... was it J-Johnny?" Again, she nodded, unable to do much outside of agreeing with him."He... h-he abducted me and my friends... killed them, but set me free. Must've been... on a whim. Must have."

"Who are you?" Devi found herself asking, not intentionally changing the topic. This man... Johnny had set him free? Why? If he'd taken the men in with intentions of killing him, why let one of them go? It made no sense, and judging by the mans words, he didn't quite understand it himself.

"My n-names Dixon. You?" Managing a polite smile, Devi held out a hand for Dixon to shake, strangely pleased to see somebody else who had somehow gotten out of Johnny's house after he'd decided to kill them.

"Devi. I was just starting to date Johnny when he, well..." Dixon didn't really need to know the details, didn't need that much of an explanation - not if he'd been in Johnny's basement at one point.

"He told me he'd kill me if he ever caught me... being 'goblin-like' again. Terrifying thing is, he _did _find me again. He didn't recognize me at first though. Smiled and continued on his was when he realized who I was, why I was acting the way I was."

"And you haven't done anything about him?" Devi asked, curious about why he was doing what Johnny said without question. "If he didn't recognize you when he saw you again, what makes you think that he'll know exactly when you do something he wouldn't like?" Dixon was silent a moment, appearing to think about what Devi had just told him.

"W-well... fear, I guess. Fear that he'll find out, and come back to kill me." Devi could sympathize - for months, she had holed herself away, obsessed and eternally convinced that Johnny would come back to her, would finish what he'd started when he tried to kill her that night if she even so much as left to buy groceries down the street.  
>She put a hand on the mans shoulder in reassurance.<p>

"Believe me, Johnny is just as human as you or me - he's just good at what he does, and that is scaring people." _And killing them_, she thought, but that wasn't going to help this man any.  
>Dixon appeared to brighten a little, smiling a little more deeply and looking less like a walking nervous breakdown then when he'd first walked in. He looked... confidant.<p>

"You're right." He said. "He's just one man. I shouldn't let my fear of him control what I do." And with that he stood up, nodding at her as he grinned. "Thanks. Now, if you don't mind, I've got some friends that need contacting." They shook hands, and Devi smiled to herself as she watched him go - the more people that got away from Johnny, the better. If people started talking about him, word of what he'd done would inevitably reach the police, and they wouldn't be able to ignore him any longer. And once Johnny was put away for good, she and many others would be able to rest easy.


	3. Incarceration

**DISCLAIMER**: I am not Lord Vasquez.

**AUTHORS NOTES**: Chapter three - we're back to Johnny, and it seems he's landed himself in a spot of trouble.

Remember, I did say Johnny's part flared into action quickly. Granted, it will be a few chapters before anything detrimental really starts up, but still.

Also, DIXON! Ahh, I just love how well he connects everything. He's got his own fantastic backstory going on, there - could probably write a side-story for him, if I wanted.

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><p><em>INCARCERATION<em>

A shiver ran down Johnny's spine as he stood in the lineup of the grocery store, various cans of soups and pastas held tightly in his arms. Something wasn't right, and he could feel it. Could sense that something was wrong but for the life of him couldn't think of what it might be.  
>A few minutes earlier, he'd been in quite a good mood, humming one of his favorite songs and not really caring who heard him. As well, his more favored soups and pastas were on sale, leading him to inevitably gather up more than the one can of Spaghetti-Os he had originally planned on getting.<p>

However, now he couldn't help but frown at the feeling of apprehension running through him - he felt distinctly as though something very bad was going to happen, like something was about to leap out and attack. That in itself, though, was extremely unlikely in a large, open area such as this. Especially if _he_ was the one being attacked.  
>Even after his things were paid for and he was halfway home, he just couldn't shake the feeling that something was completely, entirely, <em>not right<em>.

'_What is it that's making me feel this nervous?_' Johnny thought as he ambled down the street, nearing his house. For a moment he paused, whipping around rapidly to stare at the empty street stretching out behind him, half expecting some strangely dressed shithole to be stalking along behind him, walking in tandem with it's prey and moving as silently as it could.

"I know you're there." Johnny told the empty street. He narrowed his eyes at it when nothing happened, searching. "I can _feel_ you." When it remained still, and silent, the maniac growled, continuing on his way.  
>This was insane, he thought. He was becoming completely insane, and over what? a chill down his spine? A bad feeling? He'd had bad feelings plenty of times before, most of them usually pre-empting a strong urge to take somebodies life. Granted, those times had usually been due to his Wall Monster demanding blood, but still.<p>

When Johnny saw his house, he almost sighed in relief - this tension he was feeling was driving him up the metaphorical wall. Maybe he'd draw something to ease it? He _had_ getting rather good at drawing lately. He had figured it was all the ability and creativity that his Wall Monster had stolen away, returning to him after all this time and allowing him to draw something other than that damned Noodle Boy.

In his eagerness to get home, Johnny did not notice the additional vehicle, the black car parked at the road that definitely did not belong there. He wanted to get inside, away from the world and into the one place that he knew nothing could get at him.  
>Gripping his cans tighter as he reached for the knob, Johnny took in a breath, letting it out with a nervous sigh. If he had to be this fidgety for a moment longer, he would scream.<p>

"Now, to put that man in Edgar's Machine..." Johnny muttered, slowly putting the many can's away, into the ragged shelves his kitchen held. "See how funny he thinks being ripped to _strips_ is." He had only barely gotten the last can put away when he was tackled from behind, his arms grabbed and held behind him. Johnny felt a metal ring clasp tightly around one wrist, and knew immediately what it was - handcuffs. Surprised, but furious that somebody'd had the gall to set up an ambush for him inside his own home, he didn't miss a beat - he tore himself from the persons grip, whirling around and kneeing the offending person in his groin -he did hope it was a man; it would hurt the person so much more- and then headbutting him.  
>The attacker yelled out in pain, and then fell to the ground. Johnny, not wanting to take any chances, gripped the persons head, slamming it into the wood floor only once before dropping him. That would at least give him a concussion.<p>

He struggled with the handcuffs for a moment, fighting to get the metal hoop to relinquish it's grip and come off. Unfortunately, it wasn't one of the cheap sets he found at the store. These were metal, were professional. These cuffs weren't coming off any time soon, and he wasn't feeling terribly willing to go diving through the mans pockets to search for the key.  
>In anger at his failure to pry the metallic hoop off of his wrist, he kicked the man on the floor before him in the side, about to hit him a second time when he paused. This man was dressed as though he'd expected a fight - one with knives, or bullets perhaps. And there, clipped to the belt on his waist, was a little radio. A <em>two-way <em>radio. There was another person inside his house.

He had just finished that thought, had just been in the process of figuring out where the second man might've been in his basement, when he felt something sting his neck, groaning in frustration when he pulled it off - it was a dart. A small little dart that he recognized. Tranquilizers.  
>Panting as he fought off the effects of the tiny dart, Johnny whipped his gaze across his living-room, the objects before him blurring at the edges, gaining a fuzzy look. It took him a moment to find the man, clothed in black and using Johnny' couch as cover as he aimed a sleek black gun at him. Tossing the dart aside, Johnny snatched a knife off of the counter, growling at the second intruder as he staggered towards him.<p>

"You fuckers... th-think you can break int-to _my_ house? _my_ house?" He knew his words were slurring, could feel the drug pumping through his veins fighting to render him unconscious. Vaguely, Johnny's mind registered a second dart impacting with his chest, but he ignored it in favor of continuing his attempt at reaching the man so he could kill him. "Yyyou're with that... _Dixon_ fucker, aren't you?" He said, waving the knife around. The man before him was watching Johnny with wide eyes, the gun still pointed at the maniac in front of him.  
>"You know..." Johnny started, pausing in his movements and grinning lopsidedly, the drugs running through him still not quite taking complete hold of him. "The minute I see him again... I think I'm gonna put <em>him<em> in Edgar's Machine, instead." As he tried to move again, he stumbled, putting a hand on a nearby wall to support himself.  
>In front of him, the man was staring, wide-eyed. Though shocked at Johnny's innate resistance to the tranquilizers, he was not too shocked to load a third dart - which impacted the maniac in the chest, not too far from the previous dart.<p>

It took a few moments for the drugs to finally take effect like they were supposed to, and with the help of the third dart, Johnny at last crumpled to the floor. Though not entirely unconscious, his mind was, at this point, far too sedate  
>for him to be of any danger. It did not, however, stop the gun-toting man from staying where he was, hidden behind the couch, until he deemed the situation under control.<br>From his spot on the ground, Johnny's world was a blurry mess of undefined shapes and colors and sounds, any thoughts he had being about as defined as the rest of his sensory input.

"This is Red-Thorn one to Base. Come in, Base." The man said into his radio, walking over to his friend and past the downed Johnny.

"This is Base - did you get him?" The man glanced at Johnny looking him over. Johnny was rather obviously not unconscious, mumbling nonsense under his breath and drooling just slightly. He could see the maniac tracing random patterns onto the floor with his fingers, his hand being the only part of him really moving.

"...In a manner of speaking." He said after a while. "I recommend immediate pickup - Red-Thorn two is down, and the target took three tranqs and _still _isn't completely under. I don't wanna hit him with another, and I have no idea how long he'll be under if her could fight off two tranq darts that easily." A moments silence, and he got a reply.

"Copy that, 're on our way, Medical and Containment teams in tow." The man grinned slightly.

"Tell Dixon the mission was a success."

0o0o0o0

When the fuzzy blanket faded from Johnny's mind enough to allow him coherent thought, he found both of his major abilities - sight and movement - rather impaired. Not only was there a fairly restricting mask covering his face, but his arms were bound in place by a straightjacket, one that Johnny knew immediately could tell had been put in place by professionals who obviously knew who it was that they were dealing with, otherwise the straps wouldn't have been so tight.  
>As he sat up from his spot on the very cold floor, Johnny looked around, observing the room he'd been put into. It looked to be about three meters square - fairly large for a prison cell, he thought. There were no windows in the sleek, blatantly metal walls; any light in the room came from the pot lights set into the ceiling.<br>At one end of the room, there was a plain-looking bed, made up with some decent-looking blue-grey sheets that appeared right for the temperature of the air around him. At the other end, there was a toilet - not fancy enough to allow him a weapon from it, but modern enough that it wasn't a bucket, or a hole.  
>Johnny could see a door-shaped seam on one of the walls, and if he could guess, he would have said that the door was one-way - that any form of knob on the thing was on the opposite side.<p>

For a while, Johnny studied the bed; how long it was in comparison to his own height, how much his weight affected the mattress, even guessing the quality of the mattress by judging how comfortable it was and how well he could feel the springs inside. He had been about to test how bouncy it was when somebody spoke, was even standing on the bed in preparation.

"So, you're awake. You're a rather remarkable man, I must say." Johnny cocked an eyebrow, gazing around the room - he couldn't see anything that looked like a camera, or even a speaker. So he turned his gaze to the door-seam and glared, silent. "You took down one of our best men, and even managed to fight off two tranquilizers." Though he wasn't sure if the man could hear him, Johnny spoke.

"I have to commend you on your bravery - nobody has ever broken into _my_ house and _survived_"

"According to our records, very few people have survived you at _all_." The man retorted, sounding amused. Though it surprised Johnny to learn that the man on the other end of the disembodied voice could hear him, he didn't move, and didn't show any emotion.

"...It was Dixon, wasn't it?" Johnny asked, unintentionally changing the topic. The moment the voice had stopped speaking, Johnny had immediately recalled how he'd let the man called 'Dixon' go free - then how the man he'd captured months later had remarked that 'Dixon was a good man'. That same man had admitted to being part of some group that was watching Johnny. This must have been that mentioned group - the one that Dixon had also been a part of. Letting Dixon go had very obviously been a mistake.

"Excuse me?" The voice replied, sounding confused.

"Dixon - he told you what you needed to know to catch me, didn't he? Until then, you'd never been inside my house, didn't know enough about my home to risk sending men inside." He didn't wait for the voice to respond before speaking again, once more changing topics.  
>"You can't keep me in here - nobody survives me. It's all a matter of how long it takes for me to kill you; which I will." He heard the man chuckle, then speak.<p>

"If you manage to escape this facility, I'll let you do whatever you want." He sounded confident, and it angered Johny - the man, while he certainly sounded far too confident, he had good reason to be; Johnny could see no way for him to escape. No way for him to fight back.


	4. Determination

**DISCLAIMER**: I am not Lord Vasquez.

**AUTHORS NOTES**: Finished up just in time for Yuletide. Not to imply that this was only recently written, oh no. I'm currently writing chapter _nine_, you lot still have five completely-finished chapters ahead of you, that I have to type up and improve upon. :p

After this chapter, we switch back to Devi, and her oh-so-wonderful pure-filler chapters. I'm sorry if Devi's chapters are boring or repetitive - I didn't intend for her side to be so slow-going.  
>I guess it doesn't help that, more often than not, the summaries I've written for these chapters are all of one sentence long. For example - the summary for this chapter? "Johnny plans escape". Nothing big, grand or fantastic. What I've written down is the chapter summary in it's most basic form, as the one, most important plot bit. So, if a chapter feels like it's merely repeating information from previous ones, I apologize.<br>I _am_ trying to bring in hints at what's going on in the city now Johnny's been captured, however. His capture, to spoil slightly,_ has_affected the city, and I'm trying to have Devi slowly realize this, through personal experience and the experiences of others that are relayed to her by those people. I just feel I'm doing horribly at it. :/

Anyways; Happy holidays, folks!

* * *

><p><em>DETERMINATION<em>

There was no method of timekeeping in his cell - Not a single thing that would've allowed Johnny the knowledge of how long he'd been trapped. No clocks, no watches, not even a set of digitally projected wall-numbers. In fact, the only electrical objects he even had in his room were the pot-lights mounted into his ceiling, and those never even turned off. Couldn't even reach them, really, not even if he moved the bed - which was bolted to the wall and wouldn't move regardless.

Johnny could, thusly, only guess as to how much time had passed, the hours and minutes and maybe even days blending together, especially sine he didn't sleep. It felt like he'd been there for days, but that couldn't be right; he didn't feel _that_ different from when he first woke up.

For the most part, Johnny was content with meditating on his bed, only deciding to do so in the first place as it was one of precious few methods he had of killing time. It worked fairly well, or at least, seemed to – until the door to his cell slid open, vanishing into the wall with a slight 'whooshing' noise.

Three men stood there; two in some kind of armor, the third in simply a lab-coat – obviously a scientist. That same man held a gun of some sort; it looked similar to the tranquilizer guns that had been used on him before, and that meant it probably did the same thing. But Johnny was loath to merely sit and patiently wait for them to shoot him with whatever it did contain, whether it be glorified sedative or simple bullets. So, he stood; falling easily into a defensive stance. Or, at least, as defensive as he could possibly get with his arms as bound as they were.

"This is certainly a lot of effort being out into killing me, you know." He said, watching the three men carefully. "A lot of _unnecessary_ effort, if you ask me. If you wanted me _dead_, why not just shoot me from the get-go? Would have been a whole lot easier than... this." He tailed his gaze across the room in place of gesturing with his hands, though the straightjacket didn't stop the maniac from trying to move his arms appropriately, either way.

As it turned out, that was the exact wrong thing to do – not because it angered the men, but because it gave them an opportunity. The two armored men ran forwards, tackling into Johnny and holding him tightly to the wall. Surprised, Johnny screeched, struggling violently – but without the use of his arms, his jerks and kicks did practically nothing. Not that the men didn't flinch, or grunt from pain. They just didn't let go, their grips not faltering even once as he tried to attack them.

Johnny's eyes grew steadily wider as the man wielding the gun came closer. He wasn't used to experiencing such... helplessness. And deep inside, he knew that they couldn't mean to kill him – at the very least, not quite so immediately. If these men truly wanted him dead, they wouldn't have gone to such trouble as stalking him for years, then capturing him and trapping him here, in this cell. They would've just... killed him. It made no sense.

"Hold him still!" Gun-toting scientist exclaimed, walking closer – too close. Johnny growled viciously at the proximity, narrowing his eyes to slits and headbutting the man as hard as he could, once the man got close enough, got within range and thusly far too close for comfort.

Though the tough mask on his face undoubtedly made the strike far more painful for the scientist, it seemed to do little outside of making the man stumble backwards a few feet – and caused one of the men holding Johnny to the wall to jerk, clapping an arm over Johnny's throat and making it nearly impossible to breath, or even swallow without gagging and _fuck_ that hurt too!

Forgetting for a moment that he wanted these people to let him go, Johnny gagged once before wheezing, desperately fighting to fill his lungs with the air that he was being denied. Then he felt cold metal against his neck and tried vainly to get away, but he couldn't – he was being held against the wall by two people twice his size and had nowhere he could go without the power of intangibility, which he didn't have. Nor had he ever had it.

Johnny felt a stinging in his neck, then against his will, relaxed his muscles. What? A muscle relaxant? That... that was dirty, _low_... and to be expected. If he could fight sleep, then they had no reason to try and force him into it with little darts. It was simply an ineffective use of resources, especially if it took three darts to push him under and who knew how long for it to wear off. Though, that wasn't precisely a bad thing for them, but the fact they weren't meant that they either needed him conscious, or couldn't risk having such an amount of drugs pumping through him. They wanted to do tests.

"Basss...tard." Johnny muttered thickly as the pressure against his throat was lifted. No longer supporting his own weight, Johnny knew that the only reason he was upright at all was because of the guards holding him up. Otherwise he'd probably be in a crumpled mess on the floor.

Their... leader, Johnny supposed, knelt down after a while, chuckling as he stared at the limp Johnny, a smile on his face.

"You're an interesting one, hmm?" The man said. "That drug we shot you with in your house? We thought we'd designed it to work especially on you – that you resisted two of them is very intriguing. You hold more promise than initially estimated." He nudged the maniac with his boot – Johnny jerked in response, the best he could muster with the relaxant forcing him out of control of his own body.

"You... can't keep... me here." He panted out. "S-sooner or... later, I _will_ get out." And that was a promise.

"Alright." The man said, after nudging Johnny again and receiving no response apart from a heated glare. "He should be safe now. Follow me." The two guards nodded, holding Johnny up and walking along behind the Scientist man. Johnny narrowed his eyes at how the man blatantly ignored him, and though Johnny's mind was screeching at his body to move, to stop being so lay and get up – he couldn't. Could barely keep his head upright.

And he had to keep his head upright – for all he knew, this would be the only chance he got to examine what this damned facility looked like beyond the interior of his cell.

Pristine white walls dotted with strange-looking doors greeted Johnny as the scientist led him -dragged, technically- down the corridors of the facility, which was looking more and more like a hospital that ate a prison with each passing second. He knew right off that there would be few to no identifying marks, and with a grunt he dedicated all the concentration he had on memorizing the turns that were taken on their walk through the corridors of this strange place. He had, on more than one occasion, had to do this for his basement, when it's twists and turns and trapdoors because so numerous that memorization was the only answer. He was rather good at it, but it was more difficult if he didn't have any identifying marks with which to pin to certain places. It was a nice alternative, he supposed, to not being able to remember most of his personal life.

The scientists didn't talk to him – and he liked it that way. It was far easier to remember a string of different turns when you weren't being interrupted every few feet. Not even he would have been able to concentrate hard enough to memorize such a string of twists and turns with three men yammering on to him.

When the men stopped walking however, Johnny glanced up – noticing with some delight that the motion was considerably easier now than it had been earlier. Was the drug wearing off? He certainly hoped so – escaping would be much easier if he was able to move.

As a test, he tried moving his hands. Sure, they were jammed into sleeves and tied tightly to his back, but he could still move them, to an extent. Well, when not drugged. Much to his pleasure, movement came to him easily. Stiff, but easy.

They entered a plain room with white walls – identical to the walls of the outside hallways. Hadn't these people ever heard of colored paint before?

"So what do you... want with me?" Johnny asked, grateful that it wasn't quite so hard to breath anymore. Discreetly, he shifted his legs positions, testing how well he could move, as the two men dragged him over to a dentist-looking chair off to the side of the room, placing him into it before leaving – only the scientist had stayed. The maniac noticed with some glee that no straps had been done up, nothing aside from his straightjacket impeding his movement, and that was only his arms.

The scientist turned, grinning lightly.

"What, and ruin the surprise? Our boss wants to tell you himself." The man turned to a computer, activating some program on it. "Not immediately, of course – right now, we just need your statistics. Everything needs to be set up _just _right." Johnny watched as the scientist moved over to a machine that sat next to the computer he'd just been typing on, doing something that caused it to start up with a light hum. Most likely, it was going to be used on him, was what the scientist was going to use to measure out the statistics he wanted.

Shifting again, Johnny smiled underneath the mask on his face – whatever they had injected him with was wearing off. This was good – it wasn't likely he'd get a chance this good again. For all he knew, it would only take the one day to get whatever the scientist needed to set everything up for the actual experimentation. So, if he wanted to break out, it was more than likely now or never. And now was feeling pretty good. With the scientist distracted by the machine before him, thinking that the maniac behind him was totally immobilized, it would be the perfect time to attack. And with his arms bound, he really had only one method of attack.

Carefully, Johnny slid off the chair, standing up and watching the scientist for a moment. He didn't know what, precisely, the machine would do to him, but he was loath to let the man do _anything_ to him. And _fuck_ if he'd let these scientist perform experiments on him like some sort of lab rat.

Then, the scientist turned around, and both men widened their eyes. Johnny had not expected the man to turn so quickly – if at all, while the scientist obviously had not expected the supposed-to-be-drugged maniac to be up and walking around.

Without thinking, but not complaining at his sudden motion, Johnny kicked the man in his stomach as hard as he could. Not wasting the moment, he tackled the scientist before he could yell out for help, pleased when the man toppled to the floor. The scientist narrowed his eyes, and opened his mouth – likely to try and call for help – but Johnny beat him to the punch, pressing his foot -encased in boots that were not his, he noticed- to the mans neck, and leaned in close.

"Normally, I'd do this with a knife – so much easier that way – but since you have deprived me of this, my most effective method of attack, we'll have to do this the old fashioned way." Johnny grinned maliciously, pressing his boot tighter against his captors throat until the man, struggling violently for the oxygen that his lungs were being so viciously deprived of, finally went limp. Even then, Johnny remained in that position for some time, until he was absolutely certain that the man was completely and thoroughly dead. And even _if_ the man awoke again, he would most definitely have severe brain damage. And that was certainly good enough for him. Brain-damaged scientists could not give chase to homicidal maniacs. It just... couldn't happen. So, it was a win-win situation; this man would definitely not be a problem anymore.

For a moment, Johnny struggled with the straightjacket. The last time he'd been in one of these things, it hadn't been made for somebody of his size, so it had been relatively easy to slip out of. This one... this one had been designed with him specifically in mind. There would be no 'slipping out'.

"Oh well." He said "I'll just get Squee to cut me out when I get back home. Giving his arms one final jerk, Johnny ducked out of the room through the not-quite-shut door, and ran. And, he thought, anybody who was unfortunate enough to run into him would not go without receiving some kind of injury. He would make certain of it.


	5. AUTHORS NOTE

Hey guys, bad news; my computer tower broke recently - we were downloading AVG as our new antivirus, as our old Antivirus software had expired. Unfortunately, something happened during the installation process that our computer is stuck in an endless cycle of resetting itself.

We can't log in to delete it, and my sister has been yet unable to get in on safe mode (she's fairly certain that it won't reset if she gets it on safe mode) to save the files my mum wants. As such, I will be unable to update 'Come Undone' until I either get a laptop of my own; which is unlikely considering my shitty luck with getting a job, or if mum finally gives up the ghost and sends our comp in to get wiped back to factory settings. Which, at the rate things are going, isn't gonna happen soon.

Don't fear, though, I'm still writing 'Come Undone', and will be for some time. I just can't post anything. Well, except this, but I'm using a friends laptop to post this. And I'm certain she won't appreciate me monopolizing her laptop so I can update my fanfics.

So, until next time guys. I'll post again as soon as I am able.

7/3


End file.
